Your United Baggage Allowance Is Bigger Than You Think
Meg Butler September 23, 2019
Just how big can your personal item and carry-on bag be on United Airlines? It depends on who you ask.
Head to United Airlines’ official page on carry-on and personal baggage allowance, and you’ll find the official measurements, along with a couple of helpful illustrations. Those measurements are 10″ x 9″ x 17″ for your personal item, 14″ x 9″ x 22″ for your carry-on. But, the official word isn’t the final word on personal item allowance on United Airlines.
Other Measurements for American Airlines
Check the FlyerTalk forums for your personal item allowance and you’ll find reports from many FlyerTalkers that what’s online and what’s at the gate is often different. The frequent flyers who…frequent FlyerTalk have found that you can get larger baggage onto United Airlines than the official dimensions. Why? Because the official baggage allowance is slightly smaller than the actual baggage sizer at United Airlines.
The sizer, if you’ve never been asked to try and cram a plump-looking carry-on inside one, is the box near the gate where you check (or an airline employee asks you to check) to see if your luggage is regulation. If it isn’t you’ll be asked to check it at the gate. And while it has the official numbers for United’s baggage policy, it actually fits luggage that’s a little larger. Check out FlyerTalk’s helpful wiki on United and you’ll find that United’s sizer fits carry-on bags as large as 10″x 15″x 23″ and personal items as large as 9″x 11″x 18.”
If you have a tendency to over-stuff your carry-ons or cram airport tomes into your personal items, those extra cubic inches can come in handy. And, as an extra-handy add-on, the United baggage-allowance wiki also includes a list of bags that will allow you to maximize your United Airlines carry-on allowance.
[Featured Image: Shutterstock]
Until you run into the Gestapos at the gate. I have the exact same bag (Tumi) as the United cabin crew and was told I had to check it because it was oversized. I mentioned it is the exact bag the crew has as she almost blew a fuse (I kinda wish she did now) and was told either I check it or she denies me boarding. WTH.